Jarosław Kaczyński, the Head of today's main opposition party Law and Justice, has been reprimanded by the Sejm's Ethics Committee for calling the Prime Minister a "German agent".
This was shortly after Tusk invoked the words of Kaczyński's deceased twin-brother Lech Kaczyński, whose name since the Smoleńsk air tragedy has been a kind of trigger for Jarosław. (Tusk said that Lech Kaczyński had been disgusted by the behaviour of Jacek Kurski, a spin doctor for the populist right, the Head of Polish State Television in the Law and Justice period and a key ally of Jarosław Kaczyński.)
Today it is usually forgotten - both by supporters and critics - that Jarosław Kaczyński was a centrist figure for the first half of his political career. One of the founders of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, in 1998 he criticised the politically extremist Radio Maryja as "deeply anti-western".
Two years later he suffered the Smoleńsk air tragedy where his brother, sister-in-law and many political friends and allies died. One explanation for his growing authoritarianism and emotional outbursts is the trauma he went through due to Smoleńsk. In 2011, the Warsaw District Court enquired about the psychotropic medication Kaczyński was taking in the wake of Smoleńsk. A symptom of the change in Kaczyński's outlook: the previously criticised Radio Maryja became a strategic ally.
Another controversial MP, Grzegorz Braun from Konfederacja, also faced consequences today for a - presumably planned - outburst in the Polish Sejm. On December 12 2023, Braun sprayed a Menorah with a fire extinguisher, a "happening" (as his party described it) which caught the attention of the world's media.
Braun has frequently made antisemitic remarks about "the Talmudic people". Szymon Hołownia, the Sejm's speaker has asked about Braun's mental health, in particular enquiring whether Braun carries a gun in the Sejm.
Sources: PAP, Rzeczpospolita, Historia BEZ KITU, Radio Poland
pt